Last Things by Jacqueline West #bookreview #fantasy #YA

Title: Last Things

Author: Jacqueline West

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Publication Date: May 7, 2019

Page Count: 404

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

New York Times–bestselling author Jacqueline West captivates readers with a dark, hypnotic story about the cost of talent—and the evil that lurks just out of sight. Fans of Holly Black and Victoria Schwab will be mesmerized by this gorgeous, magnetic novel.

High school senior Anders Thorson is unusually gifted. His band, Last Things, is legendary in their northern Minnesota hometown. With guitar skills that would amaze even if he weren’t only eighteen, Anders is the focus of head-turning admiration. And Thea Malcom, a newcomer to the insular town, is one of his admirers. Thea seems to turn up everywhere Anders goes: gigs at the local coffeehouse, guitar lessons, even in the woods near Anders’s home.

When strange things start happening to Anders, blame immediately falls on Thea. But is she trying to hurt him? Or save him? Can he trust a girl who doesn’t seem to know the difference between dreams and reality? And how much are they both willing to sacrifice to get what they want?

Told from Anders’s and Thea’s dual points of view, this exquisitely crafted novel is full of unexpected twists and is for fans of Holly Black’s The Darkest Part of the Forest and Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood.

Last Things by Jacqueline West is a standalone young adult fantasy read that just oozes mystery and intrigue along the way. The story is told with a dual point of view alternating between the two main characters of Anders Thorson and Thea Malcom.

Anders is a teenage rock god… well an aspiring one. Anders fronts the band Last Things with a couple of his friends. The guys have a permanent gig at a local bar and have gained a huge following for their small neck of the woods  but have made a pact to not move on until after graduation.

Anders and Last Things certainly have their share of fans packing the place when they play and even a few outside of their gigs. Thea Malcom is one of the  girls that always seems to  be around and being a bit of a loner some find Thea a bit strange. When things begin happening around and to Anders and those closest to him  Thea becomes a suspect in what is happening.

Being set in northern Minnesota with plenty of woods around this one certainly had that creepy, atmospheric vibe to it almost as if those woods were another character in the story. While it’s also a slow burn story that takes a good long while soaking in an air of mystery before heading the reader to the darker fantasy it still did a good job of holding my attention along the way and I rather  enjoyed it when it was all said and done.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Find this book online: 

Goodreads  /   Amazon

About the author:

Visit JacquelineWest.com for event booking and additional information about Jacqueline.

Jacqueline West is the author of the NYT-bestselling middle grade series The Books of Elsewhere, the YA novel Dreamers Often Lie, the middle grade fantasy The Collectors, and the new YA novel Last Things.

She is also the author of two poetry collections, Cherma and Candle and Pins: Poems on Superstitions, and her poetry and short fiction appear in a variety of publications.

THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, Jacqueline’s award-winning fantasy series for young readers, is published by Dial in the USA and will also be published in Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Indonesia, Sweden, Norway, France, Germany, Russia, and Catalan.

Jacqueline’s poetry has appeared in a variety of print and online publications and has garnered several awards, including a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize and two Pushcart nominations. Cherma, her series of poems about Wisconsin’s Bohemian immigrants, was published by the University of Wisconsin’s Parallel Press chapbook series.